Descartes

An Intellectual Biography

Stephen Gaukroger

This is the first comprehensive intellectual biography of Descartes in English, offering a fundamental reassessment of all aspects of his life and work. Modern philosophy is generally taken to begin with Descartes, and his unique contribution to Western thought covers not only philosophy but also science and mathematics. His studies in mechanics, optics, and cosmology have provided modern science with tools still used and work still built on today. In Descartes, author Stephen Gaukroger traces the philosopher's intellectual development from childhood, establishing the connections between his intellectual and personal life, and placing these in the context of the cultural environment of the time. It is usually assumed that there is little development in Descartes's
thought, but this biography shows evidence of very significant changes of view and a general shift in his concern away from natural philosophy following the condemnation of Galileo by the Church in 1633. Starting with a full account of Descartes's early scientific work, Gaukroger shows how it informed and influenced his later philosophical studies. In Gaukroger's original argument, Descartes's philosophical work was meant not as an exercise in epistemology and scepticism, but rather as a defence of his physical doctrines against a hostile Church.

Descartes

An Intellectual Biography

Stephen Gaukroger

Description

René Descartes's insights into the nature of knowledge and the mind have inspired awe and debate through the centuries. But while philosophers have sought to understand the ramifications of his theories, they have paid much less attention to how, exactly, he arrived at his ideas. What twists and turns of his intellect brought him to his epochal conclusions? How did his personal ambitions and the social conditions of his era shape his thought? These questions and more are masterfully answered in Stephen Gaukroger's Descartes, a fascinating look at this most influential of all Renaissance thinkers. In his quest to retrace Descartes's development as a scientist and philosopher, Gaukroger leaves no stone unturned. From the great man's first book on music
theory (Compendium Musicae) to his masterworks Discours, Essais, Meditationes, and Principia, from his study of mathematics while attending a Jesuit college at age ten, through his dying days in the service of Christina, Queen of Sweden, Descartes brims with penetrating and often surprising insights into the philosopher's life and work. We discover, for example, that he wasn't as concerned with developing an all-encompassing theory of knowledge as he was with establishing a natural philosophy that supported the teachings of Copernicus, a man whose work he deeply admired. We also learn that Descartes was willing to alter his publicly stated views to accommodate church doctrine--especially after witnessing Galileo's condemnation in 1633. We observe how his personal triumphs and
failures--from his rumored nervous breakdown in 1614, to his joy at the popular reception of Discours and Essais, to his protracted and very public dispute with the implacable professor Voetius--affected his intellectual development. Along the way, Gaukroger details how Descartes's theories of metaphysics, mechanics, cognition, and cosmology have been both championed and distorted by philosophers of all stripes for over three hundred years. Packed with helpful diagrams and in-depth interpretations of Descartes's most celebrated works, the book also includes a useful chronology that highlights his important accomplishments and personal milestones.Descartes is an exhaustively detailed, magisterial look at the dazzling intellectual achievements of the father of modern philosophy.
Splendidly written by a renowned authority on the subject, it will serve as the definitive guide to Descartes's thoughts, works, and life for years to come.

Descartes

An Intellectual Biography

Stephen Gaukroger

Table of Contents

Preface; Chronological Table; Introduction1. `A Learned and Eloquent Piety'2. An Education in Propriety, 1606-16183. The Apprenticeship with Beeckman, 1618-16194. The Search for Method, 1619-16255. The Paris Years, 1625-16286. A New Beginning, 1629-16307. A New System of the World, 1630-16338. The Years of Consolidation, 1634-16409. Natural Philosophy and Orthodoxy, 1640-1644Biographical Sketches; Select Bibliography; Index

Descartes

An Intellectual Biography

Stephen Gaukroger

Author Information

Stephen Gaukroger is Fellow the Australian Academy of Humanities and President of the Australian Society for the History of Philosophy.

Descartes

An Intellectual Biography

Stephen Gaukroger

Reviews and Awards

"Gaukroger's book is not so much a personal portrait of Descartes as it is an extraordinary perambulation around the spiritual and intellectual life of the seventeenth century. It tells the tale of Descartes's recasting of the concerns of his contemporaries into a world that we find utterly familiar.... An extraordinary book. It is a never-ending source of astonishment that Descartes can still be so absolutely strange and so absolutely familiar.... Gaukroger has united the strange and the familiar in Descartes, teaching us something fundamental about the early conception of our world."--The New Republic

"Stephen Gaukroger's demanding intellectual biography explores every aspect of Descartes...and does so with considerable acumen and great scholarly thoroughness."--The Washington Post